only thing that saves them, at times, is a similar form of suggestion: a counteracting 'ray' by another wizard!'
'Are you telling me to take her to a witch doctor?'
'Yes, I suppose that I'm saying just that: as a desperate measure, perhaps to a priest. That's a rather bizarre little piece of advice, I know, even dangerous, in fact, unless we can definitely ascertain whether Regan knew anything at all about possession, and particularly exorcism, before this all came on. Do you think she might have read it?'
'No, l don't.'
'Seen a movie about it sometime? Something on television?'
'No.'
'Read the gospels, perhaps? The New Testament?'
'Why?'
'There are quite a few accounts of possession in them; of exorcisms by Christ. The descriptions of the symptoms, in fact, are the same as in possession today. If you---'
'Look, it's no good. Never mind, just forget it! That's all I need is to have her father hear that I called in a bunch of...'
Chris's index fingernail clicked slowly from binding to binding. Nothing. No Bible. No New Testament. Not a--- Hold it!
Her eyes darted quickly back to a title on the bottom shelf. The volume on witchcraft that Mary Jo Perrin had sent her. Chris plucked it out from the shelf and turned to the table of contents, running her thumbnail down the...
There!
The title of a chapter pulsed like a heartthrob: 'States of Possession.'
Chris closed the book and her eyes at the same time, wondering, wondering....
Maybe... just maybe...
She opened her eyes and walked slowly to the kitchen. Sharon was typing. Chris held up the book. 'Did you read this, Shar?'
Sharon kept typing, never glancing up. 'Read what?' she answered.
'This book on witchcraft'
'No.'
'Did you put it in the study?'
'No. Never touched it.'
'Where's Willie?-'
'At the market.'
Chris nodded, considering. Then went back upstairs to Regan's bedroom. She showed Karl the book. Did you put this in the study, Karl? On the bookshelf?'
'No, madam.'
'Maybe Willie,' Chris murmured as she stared at the book. Soft thrills of surmise rippled through her. Were the doctors at Barringer Clinic right? Was this it? Had Regan plucked her disorder through autosuggestion from the pages of this book? Would she find her symptoms listed here? Something specific that Regan was doing?
Chris sat at the table, opened to the chapter on possession and began to search, to search, to read: Immediately derivative of the prevalent belief in demons was the phenomenon known as possession, a state in which many individuals believed that their physical and mental functions had been invaded and were being controlled by either a demon (most common in the period under discussion) or the spirit of someone dead. There is no period of history or quarter of the globe where this phenomenon has not been reported, and in fairly constant terms, and yet it is still to be adequately explained. Since Traugott Oesterreich's definitive study, first published in 1921, very little has been added to the body of knowledge, the advances of psychiatry notwithstanding.
Not fully explained? Chris frowned. She'd had a different impression from the doctors.
What is known is the following: that various people, at various times, have undergone massive transformations so complete that those around them feel they are dealing with another person. Not only the voice, the mannerisms, facial expressions and characteristic movements are altered, but the subject himself now thinks of himself as totally distinct from the original person and as having a name---whether human or demonic---and separate history of its own....
The symptoms. Where were the symptoms? Chris wondered impatiently.
... In the Malay Archipelago, where possession is even today an everyday, common occurrence, the possessing spirit of someone dead often causes the possessed to mimic its gestures, voice and mannerisms so strikingly, that relatives of the deceased will burst into tears. But aside from so-called quasi-possession---those cases that are ultimately reducible to fraud, paranoia and hysteria---the problem has always lain with interpreting the phenomena, the oldest interpretation being the spiritist, an impression that is likely to be strengthened by the fact that the intruding personality may have accomplishments quite foreign to the first. In the demoniacal form of possession, for example, the 'demon' may sneak in languages unknown to the first personality, or...
There! Something! Regan's gibberish! An attempt at a language? She read on quickly.
... or manifest various parapsychic phenomena, telekinesis for example: the movement of objects without application of material force.
The rappings? The flinging up and down on the bed?
